


La Solución

by captain_bucky_writesaswell



Series: Missing Scenes S02 QOTS [3]
Category: Queen of the South (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love Triangles, aka james vs guero, guero being an idiot, james being soft af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_bucky_writesaswell/pseuds/captain_bucky_writesaswell
Summary: {“Teresa!”Still no answer. Now she was beginning to worry him. He desperately tugged at the door handle one more time before giving up on that method. He stood back and glanced over the door, the metal, the frame.Yep. This was gonna hurt.}[Post 206/On the boat back from Bolivia]





	La Solución

**Author's Note:**

> I know I keep on posting stuff but I'm bored :D (sorry)  
> i started writing this many...many weeks ago ... turns out that I forgot all about it :D  
> So here you go, I finished it :)

James opened his door and peeked his head around into the hallway, the noise which disturbed him was coming form the direction of Teresa’s room. He made his way towards her dormitory but ended up stopping at her bathroom door.

“Teresa? You alright?”

He didn’t get a direct response. But when her coughing turned into a different sound, he knew he needed to get to her. He grabbed onto the door handle and jimmied it.

Locked. _Damn it._

“Teresa?!” He says her name louder this time as the sound of her heaving grew stronger, jostling at the handle as if it would make the door somehow open this way.

“Teresa!”

Still no answer. Now she was beginning to worry him. He desperately tugged at the door handle one more time before giving up on that method. He stood back and glanced over the door, the metal, the frame.

_Yep_. _This was gonna hurt_.

He took a deep breath in and with a wish of good luck (and preferably no pain), rammed himself forward and forced the door open with his good shoulder.

The clash of the door being flung open and hitting something metal as it went startled Teresa, who wasn’t exactly in the best position in the first place.

Over the sound of herself and the ringing in her head, she didn’t hear James’ attempts to get her attention. Then all of a sudden he was crouched beside her, his hand on her back keeping her steady.

“Teresa, you alright?” He asked, concerned, but her continuing to throw what little contents of her gut there was up into the toilet told him otherwise. And then he thought to himself what a stupid question that was.

He raises himself up onto his feet and stands behind her, peeling her hair away that had fallen over her face to hold it behind her head. She’d already gotten some of it dirty but he didn’t care. He’d handled worse than this.

He kept his other hand rubbing gently at the space between her shoulders, reassuring her in his soft tone - “it’s okay... it’s okay.”

Teresa calms herself down a few moments later, and finds the strength to push herself away from the bowl to rest against the wall. Her eyes glued shut as the world blurs around her. James moves with her and sits down beside her. Both of them with their backs against the wall, their thighs and shoulders rubbing together in this confined space. James winces a little at the first contact as she was on the side of his newly bullet torn shoulder.

“Thank you” Teresa breathes out in a hushed voice between a couple of unsteady breaths. She opens her eyes and focuses on her hands, how they’re trembling in front of her.

“Of course. What happened?” James turns his head to face her.

“I felt a little nauseous, and then-” she literally gags at the thought of what just happened, or the thought of doing it again. Her stomach feeling like a deflated plastic bag waffling in the wind.

James is quick to cover her shaking hands with one of his - “hey it’s okay, it’s just the adrenaline wearing off. You’re gonna be fine.”

Teresa nods in agreeance and closes her eyes again, forcing her breath to slow to try and regain control of her body.

They sit there in silence for a few minutes, giving Teresa time to recover and James a moment to just be her rock. He doesn’t need to say anything, his presence is enough to steady her. She slowly leans into him as her world begins to stop spinning.

He takes a peak at her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t tell if she was tired or upset, most likely a combination of the two. Teresa had almost died three times in the past 48 hours after all.

“How do I tell king George I broke his door?” he tries to lift the mood, the faintest of smiles tugging at his lips.

And it worked. From the corner of his eye he sees Teresa looking amused at his attempt at comedic relief, her smile enough to make his own lips turn upwards further. He wasn’t expecting an answer, but what she said next put a greater smile on both of their faces.

“Buy him a bottle of tequila when we get back to Dallas, he’ll forgive you for it.”

She looks up to watch his face, his smile, and he turns his head to her to do the same.

It takes more than a few seconds before one of them looks away, breaking their contact.

“Wait here” James sighs, using his good arm to push himself up off of the floor to walk out of the door.

Teresa’s eyes follow him as he leaves. _That is becoming a habit of hers_. For a second, her mind flashes back to her hallucination in Bolivia. The one where he kisses her.

And she doesn’t stop him… but she kisses him back.

It was just a hallucination but she remembers it crystal clearly, and wonders what it would be like to actually do so. But her daydream is over too soon as the sound of footprints getting nearer brings her back to the present.

“Come on,” he gestures out to the hallway with a half a turn of his head, “let’s get you up.” He bends himself forward whilst holding out his hands to help her off of the floor. Teresa looked tired, weak. She takes one of his hands and places her other on his shoulder. As she begins to get up she squeezes her grip on his shoulder, causing James to wince and close his eyes in pain. _Oops, wrong shoulder_.

“I’m so sorry-” she hisses immediately through her teeth.

“It’s fine” he diverts away from his pain with the shake of his head, reopening his eyes, “let’s just get you up.”

He helps her out of the toilet and down the hall towards his room, in the opposite direction to where hers is.

“Where are we going?” She asks as she grips onto his side to steady herself.

“I didn’t think you’d want to get washed without a door to your restroom for all the men on this ship to see. You can use mine, and I’ll go check in with George up top while you do.”

Teresa watches his face as he manoeuvres them both carefully into his bathroom.

“I put a towel on that rail and found some soap in a cabinet. It’s not much but-”

“Thank you” she interrupts him, “It’ll be fine.” She says, leaning against the edge of the sink to keep her upright.

“If you need anything just shout” He gives her a nod before leaving her in peace.

 

Teresa takes the time to wash herself, most of the blood and dirt from their ambush by la Capitana was still under her nails and stained on her skin. She managed to somewhat rinse her hair in the sink, the ends wet enough to remove the debris from her earlier mishap, before James pulled back her hair out of her way. The water felt so good on her face. As good as luke-warm water from the barrels of one of King George’s boats could be. She dried herself with the towel that James had left her and rinsed the mess away from the sink. She opened the bathroom door and almost fell over the clean shirt and hoodie that James had left for her at the foot of the door. They hadn’t taken much with them on this trip, in fact not really anything at all. But James, always wanting to be prepared, had tucked away these two extra items in his backpack. She swapped over her blood and mud stained top for James’ shirt and zipped up his hoodie, putting her dirty items back into her room before making her way up onto the deck.

 

George’s boat was okay. It wasn’t as nice or as fancy or as covered in gold plated fruits as the one which they first met him on. This was just a standard rusty old shipping trawler that he used in order to keep a low profile.

Before she’s even out fully onto the deck, Guero’s found his way into her space. His ratty face getting a little too close to hers. And from the smell radiating from his breath, he’d had a couple more drinks than he should have.

“Listen babe, Camila’s gonna have me killed as soon as we get back to Dallas. I need you to come with me, we can run away.” Teresa scowls at him in disgust, was he _really_ trying to make this about him right now _?_ After what just happened to her? What _he saw_ happen to her?

Teresa scoffs at his ignorance and moves past him, she doesn’t have the time or the will power to deal with his bull right now.

“Is that your shirt?” She hears his whiny voice from behind her. She glances back at him over her shoulder but ignores his words and carries on walking around to where she hears most of the noise and partying voices coming from.

“Hey, there she is! Teresa!”

“Hi George” she gives him a tired smile as George and his crew gravitate towards her.

“How ya doin’ darlin’? You want a drink or two?” George places his hand gently onto her shoulder.

“No, thank you. I should go get some sleep. Have you seen James?”

“Ah okay darlin’, no worries. Yeah he’s over there, poor guy all by himself. Tell me does he ever smile?” Teresa turned her head to follow George as he gestures with his bottle around the side of a passage which led back to below deck.

“I’m not sure” Teresa joked back at George halfheartedly, “goodnight George”.

“Night Teresa” he saluted her as she walked away, following the direction he gave her towards James.

“Hey” she said softly as she appeared around the corner. James was stood leaning over the rail, his weight resting against his forearms.

“Hey” he mimicked her greeting with a certain level of gravel to his tone of voice that he gets once he’s had a drink or two. He wasn’t drunk, not even a little bit tipsy, just enjoying having a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other whilst listening to the gentleness of the waves crashing into the side of the boat.

Teresa moved forward and stood right beside him, leaving only an inch or two’s gap between them. James glances at her and tilted the neck of his beer bottle towards her, _an offering_. She looked down at the rim for a second or two, then took a small swig and gave it back to him, “thank you”.

“Yeah. You alright?”

She nodded slowly as she watched out over the ocean before them.

“It’s been a long couple of days.”

“I know, but we’ll be back to Dallas soon. We’ve got to figure out how to explain all this to Camila.” He shook his head. This wasn’t the plan, to carry this much product back from Bolivia with them.

“It’s my fault, _my_ deal with El Santo. Let me tell her?” Teresa pled.

“No, I can’t let-“

“I said I wanted to be her partner. This needs to come from me.”

James turned his head and looked at her for a beat, and she did the same. How she managed to be so strong and soft at the same time he’ll never know.

He sighed and looked back across the open water. Teresa kept her eyes subconsciously stern on his face and then blinked herself out of her toughness. She then too let out a sigh, she was getting real tired.

Something about the fresh salty air made her want to fall asleep right there and then. So she placed her hand lightly on his back, a sort of peace offering, “goodnight James”. His head turned to watch her as she let go and walked away _,_ immediately missing her presence beside him. He looked back to the ocean and finished his drink in one go, stubbing out his cigarette and tossing it into an ash tray on his way back below deck.

 

James was so tired he felt like his legs could give way beneath him at any moment. As he was walking down the steps to their sleeping quarters, he became totally aware of the raised voices coming from near his room. He turned the corner of the hall and saw Guero raise his hand up to Teresa’s face and caught her batting it away - “don’t” she warned him. Guero immediately tried again more forcefully and stepped closer to her. Before James knew it, he was grabbing Geruo’s wrist, pulling his arm behind his back and pinning him flat up against the wall. He so wished he had his gun right now so that he could end this human, but Teresa probably would never talk to him again if he did.

“Listen Guero-”

“What the fuck! Get off me man-”

“Shut up.” He pushed him again against the wall. “You have had too much to drink. Go to your room, go to sleep and leave her alone.”

Guero tried to push back and knock James over but his efforts were pointless.

“You got that?” James enforced his recommendation.

Guero pushes back to only be shoved once more by James. All the while Teresa standing with watery eyes as she watched James defend her, taking a step back from the situation.

“Guero?” James insisted.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, I got it. Now get off me.”

James let him go and pushed him towards the direction of his room, which was thankfully around a couple of corners and away from Teresa. Guero looked back at the pair watching him like hawks as he stumbled his way along the hall.

Once he was out of sight, James lifted his good hand and held onto his bad shoulder. _Well that hurt._

“Teresa?”

“I’m okay” she held back a tear. “Thank you.”

James looks in her glossy brown eyes and then to her dormitory door. He stepped forward and opened it, before moving back out to the hallway to let her through.

“James-”

“Make sure you keep this locked okay?” He pointed towards the door handle.

She stopped herself from continuing what she was first going to say, closing the gap that her lips had created and nodded in agreeance, “I will”.

As he closed her door and walked past her empty bathroom towards his own room, he remembered the words that Camila once told her, ‘ _she’ll be trouble for you too’_ echoing in his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> i never liked guero can you tell?


End file.
